In-service training with videotape is useful in teaching transfusion medicine principles

BACKGROUND: Failure to follow the basics of patient identification caused the ABO-incompatible transfusion and death of an anesthetized patient. An investigation found that the medical center's transfusion policy, while adequate, was not being disseminated uniformly to all personnel. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: With the help of the hospital's medical media department, a 23-minute videotape was produced emphasizing the importance of patient identification during phlebotomy and blood administration. Each department involved in blood transfusion was separately trained for a total of 182 persons trained. To assess whether learning had occurred, a 10-question quiz was administered both before and after the video was presented. A one-tailed t test was performed, and p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The overall pre-video test mean was 8.0 and the post-video test mean was 9.5. The difference was highly significant at p < 0.00005. Except for the Transfusion Medicine Service, which had a perfect score on the pre- video test, all departments improved their scores with p values ranging from less than 0.00005 to 0.014. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that learning did occur. Videotape is useful for in-service training and can be used for teaching on a variety of topics in transfusion medicine.